3. The auld good Man. A Scottish Seng 4. Fair Margaret and Sweet William 6. Sweet William's Ghoft. A Scottish Ballad 7. Sir John Grehme and Barbara Allen. ditto 15. A Hue and cry after Cupid. By Ben Jonfon 16. The King of France's Daughter 17. The fweet neglect. By Ben. Jonson 20. The King and the Miller of Mansfield 21. The Shepherd's Refolution. By Geo. Wither 26. The Fairies Farewell. By Dr. Corbet 2. St. George ana the Dragon. 3. Love will find out the Way 4. - 227 238 * Lord Thomas and Fair Annet. A Scottife Ballad 240 5. Unfading Beauty. By Tho. Carew 6. George Barnwell 7. The Stedfaft Shepherd, intitled in the firft Edition "The afpiring Shepherd." 8. The Spanish Virgin, or Effects of Jealousy 9, Jealousy Tyrant of the Mind 11. To Lucafta on going to the Wars. By Lovelace 12. Valentine and Urfine 13. The Dragon of Wantley 44. St. George for England. The firft Part 15. St. George for England. The fecond Part 16, Lucy and Colin. By Tickel . 17. Margaret's Ghoft, By David Mallet 18. The Boy and the Mantle revifed, &c. 19. L' Amour et Glycere. Traduit de l'Anglois The Glossary -- 246 247 263 266 The Baffled Knight, or Lady's Policy, and the Song "Why So pale." See in Vol. 2. p. 339. 347. An ordinary SONG OF BALLAD, that is the delight of the common people, cannot fail to please all fuch readers, as are not unqualificd for the entertainment by their affectation or their ignorance; and the reason is plain, because the fame paintings of nature which recommend it to the most ordinary Reader, will appear beautiful to the moft refined. ADDISON, in SPECTATOR, No: 70, KELJQUES BALLADS ON KING ARTHUR, &c. This Third Volume being chiefly devoted to Romantic Subjects, may not be improperly introduced with a few flight Strictures on the old METRICAL ROMANCES: a fubject the more worthy attention, as fuch as have written on the nature and origin of Books of Chivalry, Jeem not to have known VOL. III. b that that the first compofitions of this kind were in Verfe, and ufually fung to the Harp. ON THE ANCIENT METRICAL ROMANCES, &C.. I. THE first attempts at compofition among all barbarous nations are ever found to be Poetry and Song. The praises of their Gods, and the atchievements of their heroes, are usually chanted at their feftival meetings. These are the first rudiments of Hiftory. It is in this manner that the favages of North America preferve the memory of past events (a): and the fame method is known to have prevailed among our Saxon Ancestors, before they quitted their German forests (b). The ancient Britons had their BARDS, and the Gothic nations theirSCALDS or popular poets(c), whose business it was to record the victories of their warriors, and the genealogies of their Princes, in a kind of narrative fongs, which were committed to memory, and delivered down from one Reciter to another. So long as Poetry continued a distinct profeffion, and while the Bard, or Scald was a regular and stated officer in the Prince's court, thefe men are thought to have performed the functions of the hiftorian pretty faithfully; for tho' their narrations would be apt to receive a good deal of embellishment, they are fuppofed to (a) Vid. Lafiteau Moeurs de Sauvages, T. 2. Dr. Browne's Hia. of the Rife and Progrefs of Poetry. (b) Germani celebrant carminibus antiquis (quod unum apud illos memoriæ et annalium genus eft) Tuifionem &c. Tacit. Germ. c. 2. (c) Barth. Antiq. Dan. Lib. I. Cap. 10.-Wormii Literatura Runica. ad finem. |